The flames look very yellow. This might indicate not enough air for the fuel to burn completely. I can't tell from your photos but you should have some way for air to get in at the base of the wind screen. Many people add a row of holes near the bottom edge to insure good air flow.

The flames on your stove are very pig and your boil time seems fast. If your wind screen doesn't have any air intake holes your stove might get very hot which would accelerate the fuel burn off and would produce larger flames. Your stove would be more efficent with a slower fuel burn rate.

Yes, the TIME beat most other stoves. But how much fuel was consumed? Because that's how you get an alky stove to beat a canister stove on weight- you need decent fuel efficiency. With that quick a boil time I'll almost guarantee that he burned a ton of fuel.

I've done a fair bit of comparison recently, and that seems to be the trade-off: Faster boil times consume more fuel. He needs to fiddle with letting more or less air get through the windscreen, and the height of the pot above the stove, and see which nets the efficiency/time tradeoff that he prefers.

Clearly, though, yes, the low-hanging fruit right now is a wider pot. Or, actually, maybe a taller windscreen- in the house that tall jet of flame up the side of the pot probably worked well, but in even the slightest breeze it won't. Also, I have to wonder if those flames burn so high because of all the air they're getting? Maybe a higher windscreen would lead to the stove burning leaner, and thus a longer boil time but better efficiency.

Do you have a scale? The easiest way to measure fuel usage is to weight the filled stove before boiling, and snuff it and weight it afterwards and do a little subtraction.

I have no idea how much fuel I put in there, but the stove went out about 20 second after the boil started. Inside the stove, it wasn't more than 1/3" deep...bear with my guestimation as I don't have a means of measuring fuel at the moment.

I'll tinker with raising the windscreen to see if I can get better airflow underneath. Raising the pot, at least on this stove, seems counterproductive since the pot blocks the main opening from burning and pushes the flame to the outer holes/jets.

Take all of what I say with a grain of salt. I have only used this stove once...and it's my first.

the little measuring cups for kids medicine work good when playing around at home.

just make some mark inside the stove , a fill line, and fill to that when you are in the field. It can be as simple a sticking on a tiny piece of aluminum tape. Or scribing a line. No need to bring the measure with you. One more thing to keep track of.

Yes, you can easily find these things cheap and locally,I figured it is easier to know what you are looking for with a visual.I can get all the free little measuring cups I want for free,my mom is in a retirement home and it is what they bring her pills to her in.

Re: Second boil - Great at first, but then...
on 03/09/2013 21:38:10 MST

To me it looks like the stove is getting too hot. When the stove gets too hot it forces more alcohol out the jets and it burns faster and higher. It happens for a couple reasons I know of...1)stove design, the jets are too low and the flames lick up the side of the stove and heat it too much 2) Too much heat is trapped by the windscreen or 3)you put in too much alcohol causing higher pressure. 1 oz of alcohol should be enough.

Those beer can/bottle stoves have a good size diameter so they usually do better with a larger pot. Tinny at minibulldesigns recommends 4 inches or larger for his stoves.